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Pawnee Nation

Historically, the Pawnee lived in villages of earth lodges with adjacent farmlands near the Loup, Republican, and South Platte rivers. The Pawnee tribal economic activities throughout the year alternated between farming crops and hunting buffalo.
In the early 18th century, the Pawnee numbered more than 60,000 people and were one of the largest and most powerful tribes in the west. Although dominating the Loup (ickariʾ) and Platte (kíckatuus) river areas for centuries, they later suffered from increasing encroachment and attrition by their numerically superior, nomadic enemies: the Sioux (or Lakota (páhriksukat / paahíksukat) ("cut throat / cuts the throat"), Cheyenne (sáhe / sáhi), and Arapaho (sáriʾitihka) ("dog eater"); the Pawnee called these collectively as cárarat ("enemy tribe") or cahriksuupiíruʾ ("enemy"). The Pawnee were occasionally at war with the Comanche (raaríhtaʾ) and Kiowa (káʾiwa) farther south. They had suffered many losses due to Eurasian infectious diseases brought by the expanding Europeans, and by 1860, the Pawnee population was reduced to 4,000. It further decreased, because of disease, crop failure, and warfare, to approximately 2,400 by 1873, after which time the Pawnee were forced to move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Many Pawnee warriors enlisted to serve as Indian scouts in the US Army to track and fight their tribal enemies resisting European-American expansion on the Great Plains.

WILLIAM "BILLY" DIXON
William “Billy” Dixon was a mule skinner on wagon trainsheaded west, scouted throughout the Texas Panhandle for the Army, hunted buffalo, defended the Adobe Walls buffalo hunter's camp against Indian attack & was one of eight civilians in the history of the United States who received the Medal of Honor. Billy Dixon was born in Ohio County, in West Virginia, on September 25, 1850. He was orphaned at age 12 & lived with an uncle in Missouri for a year before setting out on his own.
He worked in woodcutters’ camps along the Missouri River until he started working at age 14 as an oxen driver & a mule skinner for a government contractor in Leavenworth, Kansas. Dixon led the founders of Adobe Walls to the Texas Plains, where he knew buffalo were in abundance. The group of 28 men & one woman occupied the outpost of five buildings 15 miles northeast of Stinnett.
The camp was attacked on June 27, 1874 by a band of 700 to 1200 Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho & Kiowa Indians. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker realized the buffalo hunters were destroying vast numbers of the migrating herds & threatening the Indian way of life. He united the 4 tribes to fight the hunters. They fought to a standoff & the hunters returned to Dodge City. That battle was the precursor of the Indian battles of the Red River War & led to the defeat of the
Plains Indians & their relocation to reservations. In 1883, Dixon returned to civilian life & built a home near the Adobe Walls site.
He was postmaster there for 20 years & also was the first sheriff of the newly- formed Hutchinson County, Texas. He served as state land commissioner & as a justice of the peace.
Dixon died in 1913 and was buried in Texline, Texas. In 1929, his body was exhumed, moved to Adobe Walls and reinterred at the battle site.

The Arikaree Breaks are badlands in northwest Kansas. They form a two-to-three-mile-wide break of rough terrain between the plains of northwestern Kansas and eastern Colorado and the south sides of the Arikaree and Republican river basins. The breaks extend from Rawlins County, Kansas westward across Cheyenne County, Kansas and into Yuma County, Colorado.
The Arikaree Breaks were carved by water. The soil here called Loess was blown to the area around 10,000 years ago. The soil has a tendency to erode, forming nearly vertical cliffs. This kind of soil is also found in northeast Kansas, southwest Nebraska, and Iowa. The soil in that part of the state forms the Loess Hills.

From The mouth of Battle Canyon & one mile beyond to the south is Punished Woman Fork Valley. There Lt. Col. Lewis & his troops entered the valley & were first engaged by Little Wolf's Cheyenne.

The Battle of Punished Woman Fork, also known as the Battle of Squaw’s Den Cave, was the last Indian battle in Kansas. It occurred when Chief Dull Knife and Little Wolf, of the Northern Cheyenne, decided to lead their people from their reservation near Fort El Reno, Oklahoma back to their former home in the north. The Cheyenne included 92 warriors, 120 women, and 141 children. As they came through Kansas, crossing the Arkansas River at the Cimarron Crossing, Lieutenant-Colonel William H. Lewis, commander at Fort Dodge, was dispatched to capture and return them.

Conestoga Wagon, a large covered wagon for long-distance travel, typically carrying pioneers in the westward migration.